


The Death of Girl Number Two

by cm (mumblemutter)



Category: Profit
Genre: F/M, Post-Canon, Yuletide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-23
Updated: 2009-12-23
Packaged: 2017-10-05 03:02:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/37110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mumblemutter/pseuds/cm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim Profit needs a wife. Gail doesn't volunteer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Death of Girl Number Two

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tokenblkgirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tokenblkgirl/gifts).



> Much gratitude to quiesce and Measured_Words for last-minute helpfulness.

He tells her one day, with that fake smile on his face that still bothers her long after she should have gotten used to it, "Gail, I've decided it's time I settled down. The Gracens have been encouraging me to find myself a nice young woman, and I think they're right. We are a family-oriented organization after all." At first she thinks he's kidding, but Profit doesn't actually have a sense of humor that doesn't come with a specific purpose, and then she thinks, oh, is he telling her this because he wants her to find a wife for him? And then she thinks: god, that poor woman.

She's already reaching for her appointment book (perhaps she'll pencil in "find my psychotic boss a wife", right after "blackmail that woman from accounts, again"; at this point nothing he asks ever really surprises her anymore), but then realizes he's still staring at her expectantly.

"Mr. Profit, surely you don't -" Because she's done a lot of things for Jim Profit, much of which she isn't proud of and some that she'll admit to herself she found some sort of sick enjoyment in, and they have a relationship now, built mostly on her being terrified of him but willing to go along so long as he'll keep her safe, but this. This. "We haven't even been on a date," she says finally, and sounds exactly as disturbed as she feels.

"I think that can be taken care of," Profit says, smiling, and Gail thinks she really should have known better. "Tomorrow, eight pm? I'll trust you'll make the reservations at someplace appropriate. Personally I favor Italian." He starts walking back to his office, but pauses at the door. "Oh, and Gail. Wear something nice. On me."

She delays the call as long as she can and briefly contemplates going for Indian, but she's not that brave, not yet. He ends up ordering for her and she wants to object but it's exactly what she would have ordered in any case, so she doesn't. He asks her about her day (Fine, the usual. Doing dirty work for you), her mother (Dying, still. In good hands, thanks to you), and then how long she thinks they should date before announcing their engagement (_Never. Never ever, never, you son of a bitch_), but that she doesn't say, and he smiles at her as if he knows exactly what she's thinking, and slides his hand across the table to cover hers. Gail stares at their interlinked fingers, and at some point she wonders why she feels as if she should want to cry, but doesn't.

He puts his hands on her shoulders at her doorstep, and when she says, "Mr. Profit, please -" he says, "Call me Jim," and his kiss is surprisingly soft and gentle, and he doesn't taste like the monster that she knows he is, doesn't taste like poison and sickness, and it's only when he's gone that she realizes that she'd closed her eyes, and that her fingers had automatically gone to her lips, after, to feel his presence there.

The next morning she comes in and hopes, like she's hoped many times before, that it was all a dream, or a joke, or failing that, that he'll just change his damned mind for once, but he smiles warmly at her (or his own version of warm, which isn't at all, but she supposes it's the effort that counts), and says, "I really enjoyed our dinner, Gail. I feel we should do this again. Friday?"  
At some point, she tells herself, she'll go into his office and give him a piece of her mind. She'll tell him thanks but no thanks (_because you're insane_), that she'll take her chances elsewhere even if he wants to fire her (_because you're insane_), that he can buy her loyalty, her service, and she'll even give him her respect freely, but it ends somewhere, because her body, her life, that belongs to her and it is not for sale. She'll tell him that she's not afraid even if he wants to kill her (_I know what you did to Joanne Meltzer, you bastard_), but this is just not going to work, she just won't.

Instead, at lunch, she drives out to the most exclusive boutique she can think of, and buys herself another dress, this time twice as expensive as the last one, with matching shoes, a handbag and small diamond earrings that she wears, defiantly, to their next dinner. His only comment is, "You look lovely this evening, Gail. But you can do better on the earrings. At least a few carats. You wouldn't want people to think that I'm too cheap to buy my fiancée a proper gift."

This time, she doesn't even bother to contradict him. At some point, when he's kissing her once again at her doorstep, longer now, she thinks: she probably never will.  
And this is how she ends up married to Jim Profit, liar, thief, murderer, and one of the most powerful men in the fifteenth largest multinational corporation in the world. Thinking about it, wandering around her huge house with the perfect furniture and the help that's as silent and as discreet as she's learned to be, you'd almost imagine it was a good life. (She never does find out what story Profit made up, exactly, to sell the sudden shift in their relationship to the Gracens, but judging from their warm smiles during the wedding it had been a suitably charming one.)

They honeymoon in Belize, and he doesn't touch her at all when they're alone together, even though a part of her is actually prepared for it, if only just to get it over with. Instead they take walks on the beach and have long, leisurely dinners, and he details to her, explicitly, all his plans for their future lives, both business and personal. It's daunting, and mildly terrifying, but not that much different from what she's already been doing for him, for what seems like forever now. Middle management, it seems, will only be the start for her.

"I tell you this because I trust you, Gail," he says, as sincerely as he can. She knows he's fond of her, and now that they're married, well. Jim Profit doesn't guarantee your safety, he just likes you to believe he does, but for a while she might not have to worry about someday outliving her usefulness.  
The sex, when it happens, isn't so bad, once she realizes that Mr. Profit (Jim, she has to keep reminding herself) enjoys it only as a strategic act, and will spend an inordinate amount of time focused on her pleasure, just because he feels it's what's appropriate.

She'd never expected it to be more than perfunctory, it's not as if they're madly in love, not even close, but when Jim leads her into the bedroom of their new home for the first time, his face is open and sincere, and by the time he's done kissing her and is pushing her softly down onto the bed she's surprised by how much she wants this. Wants him, wants his fingers sliding deeper into her, curling just so. She turns her face into the pillow when he does it, but he whispers into her ears, "You have to trust me, Gail," and she gasps, and comes hard. His head is dipping in between her legs, and she thinks, distantly, that Jim Profit is going down on her, and how strange that is, but then his tongue is on her and she feels the orgasm start to build again and she stops thinking for a while.

He always disappears, afterwards, and leaves her to wake up alone, and one night, because she's tired of it, she follows him down into the basement, into the room that he doesn't even hide very well. She falls to her knees when she finds him, and he doesn't move from his curled up position on the floor, just watches her watching him. "I'm sorry," she says, and she's crying while she says it, unsure what it is she's apologizing for, or why her face is wet.  
Once, and only once, he calls her Bobbi, and by now she knows exactly who Bobbi is, and her hand is on his face before she can even think about it. "I am your wife, Jim," she snarls, with all the force she can muster, and his face darkens, shuts down. She draws him to her chest then, wraps her arms around him and says, "It's okay. I know," and he doesn't pull back. She's learning, by instinct and by observation and by putting together pieces in her head during the endless hours when she has nothing to do but think of Jim Profit, and what type of man he is. What makes him the type of man he is.

She runs her fingers through his hair, and isn't afraid.


End file.
